Innocence
by The Seven of Us
Summary: It's not a matter of if you are willing to die for your friends, but a matter of if you are willing to kill for your friends. Oneshot. By Percy.


**Percy: I haven't written a story on here yet, so I thought I'd give it a shot. This is pretty much what I thought should've been the opening speech for the DA. I ****_am_**** minorly dyslexic, so if there's a spelling mistake, please tell me. I enlisted Ruby's help as a spellchecker, so there shouldn't be any mistakes.**

**Ruby: I thought it was pretty good, if a little lacking in description and kinda short.**

**Percy: I'm giving you the eyebrow. Just so you know.**

**Ruby: Oh, the terrible eyebrow! *faints***

* * *

"I'm not here to brush you up on your Jelly-Legs Jinxes," Harry said with finality. "I'm here to make sure that you _live_ through the upcoming war. The cliché question would be 'would you be willing to die for your friends?'. That's what Albus Dumbledore is doing. I respect the man, but this is war. He is determined to save every last Death Eater, and we are losing because of that mindset. Yes, we are losing before the war ever starts—again.

"_I'm_ asking if you are willing to_ kill_ for your friends."

There was a general reeling backwards from Harry.

"Harry…!"

Harry's unnervingly intense stare focused on Ron. "Ron! If you had to choose, which would it be: a dead Ginny or a dead Lucius Malfoy?"

"A dead Lucius Malfoy," Ron replied instantly.

The Boy-Who-Lived's stare focused on Neville. "Neville! Dead Gran or dead Bellatrix Lestrange?"

Neville looked at him as if he couldn't believe that he had to ask. "Lestrange, of course."

Harry grinned a little. "Dead Trevor or dead Bellatrix?"

A couple sad chuckles.

"Lestrange, still," Neville said, a small smile on his face at the levity.

"Neville!"

"Hermione, it was a way of bringing a little bit of humor to the very dark topic," Harry told her. "Although, I believe Neville still meant it. Okay, Hermione. A hypothetical scenario: you're at home, cooking. A Death Eater barges in, hoping to kill you and your parents as a way to get at me, the rest of the raid is pillaging the surrounding houses. The Death Eater is wearing dragonhide armor. Spells just bounce off him. Your parents are cornered, your main weapon is useless, and the dreaded two-word spell is on the Death Eater's lips. You're cooking, you're in a room full of potential weapons. What do you do?"

"I grab a frying pan and nail him on the head."

"So let's go with that you simply knocked him out instead of bashing his head in," Harry said mildly. Hermione turned a faint green. "Another Death Eater gets bored, wanders into the house. Sees you standing over his co-worker with naught but a frying pan. He's wearing dragonhide armor as well. Again, spells are flying through the air, this time directed at you, for revenge. A simple _enervate_ later, and now you have a fully-functioning Death Eater and one with a killer headache. Both are still deadly and well-protected, both coming for you. What do you do?"

Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again, looking like a fish out of water.

"Nothing, Hermione?" Harry asked sweetly, a sardonic smirk on his face. "You can kill one with a knife and perhaps knock the other out again, but you would probably die during the attempt. You're better at theoretical, Hermione. Not practical. For all the dozens upon dozens of spells that you know, you're useless at casting them in a timely manner, or under duress. You're a fifth year, Hermione. Do you remember first year? 'There's no wood!' Does that remind you of something? Those who are muggle-raised are prejudiced against because we insist on following the supposed laws of physics, despite the fact that _every single law_ has been broken in our time here, with the exception of Murphy's Law. I want you in here until using magic is the _first_ thing you think about doing."

Hermione bristled. "Harry—"

"Go ahead," Harry challenged softly, his voice low and powerful. "Say that I'm wrong. Yes, I will be the first to say that killing is wrong. I do not condone killing. But I—me, just little ol' Harry Potter—just outsmarted Hermione Granger. And because I outsmarted her, and because she refused to kill, she herself got killed. You could've dealt with the other Death Eater easily. But you couldn't, because you refused to kill."

He looked across the rest of the faces. "Have I made my point?"

Stunned silence.

"We…we won't _have_ to kill, will we?"

Harry knelt in front of Dennis Creevy, grasping the boy's shoulders. "Dennis, I dearly hope that you will _never_ suffer the injustice of having to kill. If I could, all those that you may or may not be forced to kill, I would kill for you. But I can't be everywhere at once. I hope to Merlin, God, whatever higher being that may be out there that _no one_ in this room will have to kill in the future. But I want you all alive when this war ends. And the best way to do that, is to prepare for the worst."

* * *

"Harry, you can't just throw your innocence away like that."

"If my innocence didn't die when I was fifteen months old, Hermione, it did when I killed Quirrel in _first year_."

His voice was low, soft, yet nearly throbbing with sorrow and power. Two of the Golden Trio watched the third walk away.

"And you accuse _me_ of having the emotional range of a teaspoon," Ron remarked dryly.


End file.
